Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring (2003)

'Tis the season of perverted pagan rituals, to be reminded,
"Lust awakens the desire to possess, and that awakens the intent to murder."

Possess a Samsung - 42" Class 720p Flat-Panel Plasma HDTV and Microsoft - Xbox 360 Pro Console, available at Best Buy now for just $899.98.

A season of giving, a season of taking.

With a large stone roped to our child's bust we step boldly before a blue Ford pickup speeding down Laurel Canyon, we slip quietly through a hole in ice covered White Bear Lake, we leap faithfully from a Bedford Falls bridge.

Recall indulging an old friend's addiction at the Triangle Bar, mimicking the stupor of Exile on 4th Street, watching "Torn and Frayed" shredded by Zuzu's Pedals--the souvenir laughing that after death comes a Wonderful Life.

The gravel baritone of Reverend Cleveland, gospel's tragic king, calls:
Say you gotta habit.
(everybody gotta habit).

A choir of evergreen cliffs responds:
Tell me about it.

Back leans into fingers painting grand colors into carved keys:
Man said, "I'm hooked! I'm hooked! Aaand--I--caaan't--get myself freeee!"

'Kerchief dabs, temple glistening:
(Shhhh)
Where is your faith?
Where--is--your--faaayyth
in God?

Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977)

The Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1931:

Divorce Over Tree Planting Held Invalid

Rudolph Fotsch, 73 years of age, who recently was given a divorce on his testimony that every time he planted a certain tree in his back yard his wife, Addie Belle Fotsch, 68, would change it, has no divorce today. His wife had the decree set aside yesterday by Superior Judge Edmonds on grounds of fraud.

Mrs. Fotsch, through her attorney, declared she did not contest the suit because her husband had informed her it was dismissed.

She also asserted that they had not separated last May 20, as set forth by her husband, but only two weeks ago.

July, 10, 1931:

Elderly Pair to Renew Divorce Battle Today

Mrs. Addie Belle Fotsch, 85 years of age, and her octogenarian husband, Rudolph Fotsch, are expected to meet again today in Superior Court for trial of their contested divorce suit.

Fotsch recently obtained an interlocutory decree of divorce on his testimony that every time he planted a certain tree in the back yard of their home his wife would move it. Mrs. Fotsch then came before Superior Judge Edmonds and had the decree set aside on the grounds that it was obtained by fraud.

The case is scheduled to be heard by Clarence J. Morley, one-time judge and Governor of Colorado, who has volunteered to serve as jurist to relieve congestion in the local courts.

February 4, 1936:

Deaths

FOTSCH. Mrs. Belle E. Fotsch, beloved wife of Rudolf Fotsch of 3028 East First street. Funeral services today at 1 p.m. from the chapel of W.A. Brown, 1815 South Flower street.

Nov 8, 1938

Deaths

FOTSCH. The funeral services of Rudolph Fotsch will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. from the chapel of W.A. Brown, 1815 South Flower street.

And so, a man from Halau, Switzerland, who left his first wife back in Muscatine for California in The Day of the Locust, is found by his great-grandson buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Boyle Heights with an unknown woman.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)

In Persona Liv Ullmann holds a photo of a boy, frozen hands held level with capped head, soldier leveling rifle at back. The same photo found in Night and Fog precedes piled corpses bulldozed to burial pits.

This boy, now behind barbed wire, Shmuel--Prophet, Judge, Son of God--meets Bruno--son of SS soldier--in a light-hearted tale of mistaken identity at a death camp.

An allegory for our own mistaken identity, fictional self-representation: as Milton Mayer says of his Nazi friends, kleine Leute, ordinary Germans, "they thought they were free," and Mayer asks, "isn't this true of us all?"

It feels good feeding delectably soft pastries to comic strip Pig-Pen neighbors, dirt covered with rotting teeth, imagining our joys untraceable to their pains, sweets untinged by Zyklon B pellets.

And after we absorb the chill, the bite of our crime, our betrayal, what will we sacrifice to give a clasping hand in love, friendship?

Persona (1966)

Twenty years ago I held a secret torch for a dear high school friend. For me she laid bare intimate torments shielded by a gentle generosity with an artistry elaborating the minimalism of a slumping gray haired man unaware a crumpled paper napkin had fallen from his grease smudged windbreaker pocket as he sat down on a Rice Park bench.

Her unfortunate eccentricity a lilting Caly accent drew Minnesota city-teen mockery. Few in high school knew she lived with her openly gay mother and partner. Revelations of their sex life brought comfort--a first snow of safety in the cold pillow of queer identity.

On her Uptown summer porch we shared a pint of Häagen-Dazs rum raisin, the liquor floating through butterfat to the soundtrack of Soul Asylum. On a Chicago visit, in my twin bed, her blond hair dropping down a knuckly spine, thin arm squeezing mine, we slept as sisters.

Viewing My Life as a Dog at the Varsity slugged me in the gut like the 6' 5" basketball center suckerpunching me after I spilled chocolate milk on him in lunch, catching me off guard in a crowded Ramsey Junior High hall. For ninety minutes tears drenched cheeks to salt lips. After the film she looked at me quizzically. Her pale blue eyes were dry.

The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)

In the context of a Christian right's twisted fight for the 'sanctity' of marriage we need Fassbinder to enlighten the butchery in this patriarchal cellar--klären das Schlachten in diesem patriarchalischen keller auf.

Here is marriage as searching half sandwich-board photo frame dumped on railroad station track to be crushed under steel wheel, as cracked skull of naked black American soldier dead before torn sheeted bed, as shedding plaster shards from crossbeam open to white sky in two-ton firebombed schoolhouse, as BRD freshly soaking in Holocaust complicity shame, as fidelity to capital and infidelity to affection.

In the words of Adorno, "To watch romantic comedy after Auschwitz is barbaric."

Trafic (1971)

"Je n'ai vu aucun d'un automobiliste sourire," remarks Tati of the two hours he sat on a highway overpass, preparing for this film by observing drivers as they left Paris.

Mais non M. Hulot, ce film n'est pas une comédie. C'est un ballet des os cassés--a ballet of broken bones.

The canvas of Pissarro trembling with the demolition of Hausmann travels to the colored purity of Mondrian's movement of balancing black lines.

Embrace the Rube Goldberg confused coordination Citroën DS on front axle counter rolling through painted arrow on asphalt.

Mais oui M. Hulot, ce film est une tragédie poétique, comme Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.

Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

           ALFRED
Poor baby.
           DAPHNE
Why?
           ALFRED
'Cause you know that I know. You can feel
it. It's made you all small and ashamed and
unhappy. As if we could control our love--
lead it by the hand like an obedient child
and order it to do our bidding.
           DAPHNE
I don't know what you're talking about.
           ALFRED
Yes, you know what I'm talking about 'cause
love took you by the hand and led you,
albeit slyly and reluctantly, into the presence
of this beautiful young man and said,
"See little Daphne what I have intended for
you. Gaze upon your destiny. See how gently
the tendrils of his luscious hair curl behind
his ears. See how respectfully he lowers his
silken lashes when addressing you. But notice
the spark that leaps from his skin to yours
when accidentally your hands meet."
           DAPHNE
Oh no. No.
           ALFRED
I don't blame you darling. You didn't want to.
I'm the one to blame. Entirely and alone. I'm
deeply ashamed Daphne for what I've done to you.
           DAPHNE
You? Ashamed? I'm the one...
           ALFRED
No darling. The one who knows the most carries
the responsibility.  He and he alone must judge
the chances of success... or failure. A union
between a man of the world--a seasoned traveler
--and a child from Porthole, Michigan, I suppose
was doomed from the start.
           DAPHNE
(Sobbing)
Porthaul.
           ALFRED
I'll never remember it.  A baby with bows in
her hair, that wonderful night. Pity we
couldn't keep it up. Oh don't cry my darling.
I couldn't understand music as well as I do
if I didn't understand the human heart a
little.  Neither of you has done anything
wrong. Youth belongs to youth, beauty to
beauty.

The pen of Preston Sturges, the voice of Rex Harrison, the lens of Victor Milner, the music of Richard--not Strauss but Wagner, the taste of honeyed ham lingers on the tongue 'til eyes water.

Wages of Fear (1953)

1950s nitroglycerin ravages South American forest in a moment of imperialistic terror on which angry petroholic pleasures rest--Angelenos shout, 'More blood for oil! More blood for oil!"--tracable back to post-Ottoman betrayal, Lawrence of Arabia, nineteenth century penetration of inscrutable Kafirs, The Man Who Would Be King, sixteenth century El Dorado driven madness, Aguirre, the Wrath of God.

Trucklust permits no escape from the misogyny of male bonding--whether mythopoetic Iron Johns, hyperretropuritan Promise Keepers, or late '90s Vegas partiers, Swingers to Very Bad Things. Don't hesitate to kick a pleading woman in the mud for a chance to hand roll French tobacco with your mec in the cab.

What time is it there?

My blog has moved to Life on Film.

Blog has moved

Fotsch on Film has moved to pmfilm.blogspot.com

Lovely and Amazing (2001)

From campus, I can see the fire, bright orange edge zig-zagging down mountain, pink pork belly smoke mud western sky.

Last week I joined the Y and took my first Yoga class. The instructor tells us Yoga can be an emotional experience. It can make you angry, sad, frustrated as body pinches resistance to imaginary self. Fall over if you fall over, let it fall, but always breathe, breathe deep breaths. If you do this, the toxins will be released.

Close-Up (1990)

On the day of atonement, when performing supplication, make it understood to be real. Perhaps the receiver will collect the authenticity of acting. But will the justice of potted flowers wash innocence of guilt, guilt of innocence? Doesn't the burden of forgiveness weigh heavier on the beggar shamed by the tainted joy of belief than the comfortable troubled by the falseness of true praise?

What time is it there? / 你那邊幾點 /Et là-bas, quelle heure est-il?

If I had the time I would write a book on this film.

But let me begin here:

This is a silent comedy. It is Buster Keaton breaking his neck in the water spout sequence of Sherlock Jr. It is Harold Lloyd hanging from the tower clock with right missing thumb and forefinger hidden by glove in Safety Last. It is Chaplin confounded by conveyor belt in Modern Times. And most of all it is the final scene from City Lights: the mockery of shopping for connection in a place of unrelenting pain.

Match Point (2005)

Americans love the Horatio Alger story--through pluck and hard work the lowly can become Ferrari drivers. Often erased is the importance of luck to these characters' success.

Allen plays on this in the context of Britain. There the luck of birth is so much more obvious than in the U.S. where everyone self-describes as middle class.

But the fortune of financial gain must sometimes be sustained by crushing others. Jack Lemmon's lesson in The Apartment is perhaps also that of our pockmarked billionaire hedge fund managers.

The definitive film on American gambling, and thus for our current financial crisis, is Altman's California Split with a similar surprise ending. Amid Elliot Gould's champagne popping eyes toward gluttony, George Segal's bewildering nauseous reply says it all: "I'm going home."

Rumor Has it... (2005)

I didn't come here to tell you I can't live without you.
I can live without you.
I just don't want to.

This is the way people talk in Hollywood schmalzville.

I saw this film on the shelf and thought, 'How intriguing, a follow up to The Graduate. Hey it says "Two Thumbs Up" and I like Jennifer Aniston--her punch at McDonaldization in Office Space, the rip on rich White Westsiders in Friends with Money, the surprising darkness of The Break-up even Along Came Polly made me laugh.'

Yeah I like Jennifer Aniston.

But as the opening credits rolled and I saw 'Directed by Rob Reiner' the stink of formulaic triteness shook me like the Aniston character is shaken by air turbulence in her plane seat. A flighty woman who must be reassured by her sweetly funny fiancé--this is going to be a bumpy ride.

Soon we find the tedious but good-hearted widower/father, the free-spirited alcoholic grandmother (you're Mrs Robinson arent you!!??) and of course the wealthy playboy who flies his own private jet.

Echoes of Robert Stack seducing Lauren Bacall in Written on the Wind, but Reiner is no Douglas Sirk, who infused his characters with biblical neuroses, American puritanical rage and the irreparable cruelty of domesticity. Yes, the confession of Dorothy Malone allows a concluding matrimonial reconciliation but not before blood has been shed--and isn't Bacall in the end a substitute for Stack, Rock Hudson's true desire revealed by his utter erotic disengagement from Malone, who he regards too much "like a sister."

But Reinerworld knows its target market, and sexual dysfunction just doesn't sell.

Castle in the Sky (1986)

Did it happen in a dream? Or was it in the middle of my silent drive home from T.O. last night after viewing Miyazaki's 1986 anti-milatarist tale with brother and kids.

Was it sparked by a clip from Cool Hand Luke in a PBS documentary I glimpsed channel surfing Thursday eve?

I was reflecting on Paul Newman's teaming with Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and The Sting, thinking 'but that wasn't Newman's only classic buddy?'.

Perhaps a phantasm of brotherly love, it was nonetheless real. Once again I foresaw the remembrance of a cinematic giant.